Vash

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

Having opened the door and stepped inside, the group took a look around and saw the intricate carvings on the inside walls. They took a moment to prepare themselves mentally before Cynthia spoke. The only lights being cast came from outside, the water from the waterfall splashing in as they dried themselves off as best as they could. Iisska and Cheshik found torches on the wall that were long burned out, but were able to reignite them easily. As they did, bugs skittered away in fear and they were more easily able to see the path ahead.

"I apologize." Cynthia said. "I must be returning to my master. I will leave marks on the way back to guide you back to the mansion."

"Whoa! No!" Iisska stepped infront of her, "And just leave us here to get killed I bet?"

"My master is gravely ill and does not have long to live without medication." She said coldly. "I must not dawdle in returning to his side." She stepped around him effortlessly and disappeared behind the waterfall. Nyrette placed a hand on Iisska's shoulder and tried to reassure him. "Don't worry. We'll be fine, she at least got us here. It can't be that bad, I mean, you put up with Zen for a year."

"It's not the same thing!" he fumed.

"Oh really? Just two weeks ago he put you through an invisible obstacle course and threw you into walls for hitting an 'invisible spike'. You spent four hours in the kolto tank."

"Exactly! It's not the same thing! We don't know this person. We don't know what's down there. We don't know if we're stupid, trapped sacrifices to I don't fucking know what horrible... ness... You guys..."

Before Nyrette could try and stop him, Cheshik came close and placed a hand on Iisska's head. "Stop whining. We have seen worse bad things in super market." He turned and walked away into the darkness, scouting ahead.

"Don't you talk to me about the supermarket," Iisska grumbled, "So you all trust these people? Really?"

Nyrette placed a hand on her hip and shook her head. "No. But as a group that have been doing borderline mercenary work for the past year, aren't we used to this by now?"

"Mm," Quin nodded, "And as it stands, we either do this and get a foothold in this world or go back to wasting away alone in the wilderness."

From deeper down the hall, the group hear Cheshik yell. "If only we had incredible Togruta that heard slightest sounds in darkness here and could easily point out bad things!"

"Shut your face!" Iisska snarled before visibly calming down, "I guess... Yeah... You're right. And I guess that's a reason I'm not all the way usel--" he cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders before punching his fists together, "... Let's go."

Having finally come to a consensus, Iisska, Quin, and Nyrette ran to catch up with Cheshik, whom was much farther in. He was at the entrance to a larger room. There were more carvings on the walls and ceiling even. On the far side there was a large statue of what seemed to be a jester with a cane. Seeing nothing moving so far, the group moved on. "See, Iisska. Not that bad. Is better than supermarket." Cheshik quipped.

"Cheshik!" Iisska hissed.

"Do not take attitude with me Iis-" He froze then, hearing a something scraping against the ground in the distance. "Stop. We are not alone." He reached to his back and drew his Zweihander.

"Stay close and keep moving forward." Nyrette said.

Quin stuck to her like glue but was careful to give her enough space. Enough for her sword and enough to put a bolt into anything that moved. Even though she herself couldn't hear or see anything. Only her pulse, the soft crackle of the flames and the the breeze that was coming from the deep. It sounded reminiscent of a slow shallow breath. Air rustled through the hair by her ear like being stabbed with burning ice.

She nearly jumped out of her shoes. She didn't scream. Her voice was stuck with a sharp gasp. She wheeled around and was met with a set of glistening, bloody rubies hovering just before her face. And the cold, the deathly, gripping cold washed over her. It was well over six feet tall, rotting and skeletal. The flesh had frozen black and it's jaw hung open revealing a hollow mouth lined with broken teeth. Instinct kicked in and she pulled the trigger on her crossbow. It released and the bolt sank into the creature's chest.

It staggered back a few feet, hunched, wobbled and then stood once more. It looked right at her.

And then it screamed.

Cheshik wheeled around and took the creature by the head, wrapping his huge muscular claw around it and slamming it into the ground, crushing it into dust. But it was too late. All around them, bloody red eyes pierced the veil of darkness and more screams rang throughout the room. They were surrounded by at least twenty of them. Nyrette drew her blade and took stock with Quin to give her time to reload while Cheshik pounded his chest and roared, drawing the attention of the creatures as they broke into a sprint and charged at the group.

What had been fear turned to pure adrenaline and Iisska dove headlong into the mob of creatures coming at them.

"No don't!" Quin yelled.

The first punch he threw connected with the face of a creature and sheared off solid flesh and bone alike in a burst of debris. It twisted from the force, but did not fall. More were behind it. Iisska backed up immediately. His arm from knuckles to shoulder felt like a bolt of electricity had been sent through the nerves.

Unlike Iisska, Cheshik was in his element. Two sword slashes sent heads rolling across the floor as one leaped onto him. He stopped it mid jump via grabbing it's neck with his iron grip and throwing it across the room. He swung around and connected his blade with one, then two, then a third. He didn't stop to watch them fall.

Meanwhile, Nyrette and Quin were set upon by three of them and, unlike Cheshik, Nyrette was not able to take heads off in one swing. More along the lines of two swings as she swung and sliced at one that was getting too close. It twisted around her blade and fell to the ground for a moment before snarling and getting back up to charge at her again. She swung around and decapitated it before moving on to the other two. She froze for a moment as a bolt flew threw her hair and struck home between one of the creature's eyes, making it crumple to the floor in a heap. Nyrette didn't have to give Quin a romantic thumbs up before the last of the trio jumped on her in her moment of weakness and got her to the ground, trying to pin her and bite at her.

No time to reload. Quin threw the crossbow over her back and pulled her vibro-dagger from her belt while she came down upon the monsters swarming Nyrette. She sank it to the hilt into the nearest one's skull with a crunch before kicking the now limp corpse aside. Like a wild animal she visciously cut, sliced and stabbed her way through the next two. The last one was still struggling with a roughly hacked neck barely hanging on to the spine when Quin grabbed Nyrette by the arm and yanked her upright and away from danger.

Despite his best efforts Iisska had been taken to the ground. He ripped away from the vice like jaws of the thing ontop of him, shoved it down and rolled over it. A bit of his bloody jacket was still lodged in it's mouth, but he didn't even feel the pain. Just rage and fear. He clamped onto it's neck and sent punch after punch after punch into it's face until the bone and features cracked and shattered away. With each successive strike it became harder and harder to clench his fingers. He was hit hard from behind by a shrieking monster. That insane high pitched waling felt like an axe to the brain. With a scream he pushed off the ground hard and landed on his back crushing the creature below him, but it just seemed to grip harder with it's disgusting hands squeezing tighter and tighter around his neck.

Rushing to his brother's side, cheshik knelt down and slipped his claws underneath the creature's and pulled them off of iisska's throat. He pulled iisska off and, as the creature scrambled, planted his armored boot on its face, crushing it into an icy dust. Not reveling in victory, he went to iisska to help him to his feet. "Girls, okay?"

Nyrette held onto Quin for dear life for a few moments after, gripping her sword in her off hand. It took her a few seconds to realize that Cheshik had asked her a question. "Uh...yeah." She said, finally letting go of Quin's hand and massaging her shoulders. She noticed that her stomach armor was torn pretty badly, but nothing more than a light scratch underneath. She looked to her partner in crime and saw that she was alright too, aside from some scratches. "You alright, Iisska?"

"Fine," he replied.

"Do you need hug?" Cheshik said, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"No. I don't need no fucking hug," Iisska spat, "Let's just get the thing and go."

"Quin? You want hug instead?" He joked.

Quin gave Nyrette a quick squeeze around the hips before opening her arms and winking, "If you're offering."

Nyrette barely got a hug back before Cheshik bounded over and gave a big ol' victory hug. She shook her head and took Cheshik's torch to go about the room to light the others that dotted the room, giving them enough light to be able to see the death before it hits them. She approached the statue of the jester and found two more torches that cast an eerie light onto the statue. "Think this is some kind of god or something? Seems weird to put a jester in a tomb. Owner maybe?" She asked nobody in partitucular.

Quin sidled over when she heard Nyrette talking and sized up the statue as well.

"Maybe it's not a jester," she suggested, "If it's anything like the carvings around the door outside I would say it's a god or spirit. Perhaps a guardian."

She proceeded to walk around the statue, examining it closely and running her fingertips along the base.

"If it's not gonna help us find this cure bullshit or whatever then just leave it alone," Iisska yelled from across the room.

Nyrette ignored the screaming person across the room and examined the statue a bit more closely, taking into account the room. "Well, considering what we just fought it couldn't be a guardian. If it was, it'd probably come to life or something. Wouldn't make sense either since the hallways are smaller than it." She said. "Lets move on though. Iisska is right, it's not helping." She said and made her way over to the next tunnel. She peered into the darkness for several moments, waiting for the others.

"Quin, I think I see something shining at the end of the hall." She beckoned.

Quin was there first with a torch, lifting it high to see deeper down the hall. Cheshik and Iisska weren't far behind.

"I don't see anything but..." she began to walk along the edge of the wall here, "It's worth checking on, right?"

It took several more moments for her to make it down the hallway enough for the light of her torch to glint off something in the distance. She could barely make out it's location, resting inside one of the catacombs carved into the stone.

Following Quin's footsteps, Nyrette crept alongside the other wall, leaving the boys to stay behind just in case there were traps. As she made her way down, she saw several strange patterns dotting the floor, making her think that she was more right than she would like to admit. She made it down far enough to parallel Quin and move with her down the hallway. It seemed that the architect did not exactly account for people of intelligence coming through and just using the wall. Within just a dozen minutes or so, they had reached the far wall and saw the bright white vial on the carved out shelf. Before moving towards it, Nyrette rose her hand. "I got it, keep a look out."

Stepping off of the wall, she kept low and slow, using the torch to light the ground and let her know where to step. The insignias were all over the place now and she was fining it difficult to navigate them. After a few more minutes of navigation she reached the wall and simply grabbed the vial...nothing happened. She carefully looked around after she grabbed it and didn't see much other than another corridor. Though it was hard to see, she could make out large shadows moving far down the hall. She shook her head and made her way back across the trapped floor. "Seems like there is something deeper but..." She held the vial aloft. It was white and had strange writing on the front. It was barely as large as her hand and it was icy cold to the touch, but not quite frozen judging from the liquid on the inside.

"You think that's it?" Quin getly took the vial from Nyrette, "I suppose your guess is as good as mine and it does fit the description. Let's take it back. If we wind up back here we will at least be prepared and we can explore whatever else is down there."

"Agreed" She said and the two made their way back. It took a little less time for them to make it back this time and when they did they found Cheshik giving Iisska a hug. He set him down as the girls returned and spoke gladly. "Have potion?" He said, happy when he saw Quin nodding her head.

"At least we are somewhat sure we have it," she shrugged, "We'll know for sure when we get back to the cabin."

"Fantastic," Iisska snorted. He was already walking back toward the long entrance tunnel.

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

Cynthia took the weapon she had and held it like a rifle, adjusting the sights as it had been some time since their last use. "This is a Crossbow, very commonly used by archers and squires across the land. First pioneered by dwarven settlers that found it impossible to utilize standard bows and arrows." She lead Quin back down the stairs and quickly strode over to a small bin. She set the crossbow aside and opening the bin and fishing out a bolt quiver and handing it to Quin. She claimed one of the bolts and grabbed the crossbow. "Please watch carefully." She said flatly before she aimed the crossbow straight at Iisska's head and placed the bolt on the receiver, sliding it towards herself and catching the crossbow string and hooking on a lock.

With a wicked snap, she fired it and the bolt embedded fletch-deep in the wooden underground wall, having gone right between Iisska's montrals. Having been about a second too late, he dropped to the ground after it had already hit the wall. She handed the crossbow back to Quin and bowed slightly. "It shall serve you well, ma'am." She said robotically before going to retrieve the bolt in the wall and help Iisska to his feet. She waited patiently by the stairs back up for the group to finish.

"So...Pike'ire. They never taught you the basics of swordfighting in the republic?" Nyrette said, grabbing a Rapier that was sitting against the wall. She had grabbed a sword belt as well and attached it to her hip. The sword fit snugly to her frame. "In the academy where I was taught how to fight, sword fighting was a requirement to move onto basic training. It's been that way for almost as long as the faction had existed."

Quin shrugged and asked how sword fighting could be useful in this day and age.

"Way they saw it, at one point we would be fighting a Jedi or a Sith. A knife will not do against them and neither will a blaster. Grenades will simply be redirected and the only way to fight them one on one is with a sword." She drew the rapier with her dominant hand and tested it by swiping it through the air. It was uncommonly sharp and deadly. "It's been a while since I last used my preferred sword, but it shouldn't be a problem...ya know what this means, right, Pike?"

While loading up on a few extra bolts and throwing knives, Quin mumbled a "Yeah?"

"When we get back to the ship, I'll get to train you on how to use a sword." Quin stood up and dropped the items she was holding, both her and Nyrette were smiling wildly and giggling at the prospect of one teaching the other to fight. Meanwhile, Iisska has taken up part of a wall next to Cynthia, leaning against it and dozing off a bit.

Little did they notice however that Cheshik had disappeared for a few moments. There was a changing room on the far side of the armory and the doors to it burst open with Cheshik swaggering out like a badass with his sword leaning on his shoulder, in a heavy plated breastplate with his left arm fully armored, leaving his right arm naked and fully able to swing his sword with full mobility. He had two sheaths on his back, one he had found for his light and fast Zweihander, and a second holding a formidable oversized Battleaxe. "Am I only one that will use armor? We are going to dangerous tomb, yes? Is not threat? There is plenty armor to go around. Should get leather at least." Though she would have preferred going without armor, Cheshik was right. Had to try and stay safe here since they were low on Kolto. She grabbed some tight fitting leather armor and put it on over her clothing. It was snug, but light and didn't weigh her down too much.

Once they were done, they followed Cynthia up the stairs and followed her out the door, leaving for the tomb at a brisk pace.

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

The logs and obstacles that they encountered that ended up slowing down the group was barely even an annoyance for the woman that lead them. She kept a constant just-below-jogging pace through the woods, undisturbed by the mud and filth caused by the rain from two nights previous. She was very precise in every step and almost had a wind-like presence about her. When she got too far ahead of the group, whom trampled over everything and slowed down often, she patiently waited without so much as a peep. A normal person would have complained about the group's speed, but she seemed content to wait for the group, like she wasn't even in a hurry.

As they came to the end of their romp through the woods, they came upon a large two story oak log cabin. Very well maintained to the point that it was almost pristine. A covered porch made up the front, a fur and leather porch shade wrapped around it to protect it from the rain that was starting to come down in light spurts. The woman came up a set of stairs to the outside door and opened it, allowing the others to walk inside ahead of her and wait on the porch for a moment while the woman locked the door. The porch was very posh with many chairs and tables with candles on them plopped in two main areas. The porch itself was almost a full room, just without any windows to cover it.

The woman moved ahead of them again to open up the carved oak door and lead them inside. The cabin was very high class on the inside, with obviously expensive rugs and tapestries. The walls had paintings of various vistas on them that looked like they were hand painted. There was a roaring fireplace that had two red chairs in front and finally a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor on the far side of the room. Again, the woman locked the door behind them and she moved over to the staircase but stopped when the group tried to follow.

"Please stay your feet for the time being." She said, putting up one of her bright blue gloved hands. "I must inform my master of your presence before you will be allowed to see him." She did not wait for a retort from them and went up the stairs.

While they waited, the group split up, looking about the room and exploring. There was a kitchen, wash room, and a locked door that seemed to go into a basement, judging from the window that was next to the door. Nyrette ran her hand over the furniture in front of the fireplace and couldn't help but gaze in awe at the paintings and decorum. "This is astounding. These paintings all all original. Pike, come here." She beckoned her and came up to a painting. She pointed at several spots and spoke about it. "See here and here? Mistakes made by the artist...and here? The paint dried in a direction that's not aligning with the rest of the piece. The artist must have been in a windy area while painting this. I can't remember the last time I saw an original piece that wasn't a digital copy...." The painting in question was one of a cliffside vista overlooking the ocean during sunset. The colors popped with a type of intensity that almost hurt the eyes. All the paintings were non-digital and completely unique.

Much of the furniture in the room was of the same quality. A mistake here or there saying that everything was hand made, not in a factory like almost everything back home. Cheshik was across the room, looking at the staircase and the carvings. "There are mistake on wood as well. Whoever master is, he is not from our home or our galaxy. Style is too...how you say...?"

"Alien. Strange." Nyrette finished the sentence for them as the woman from before came to the top of the stairs.

"My master is ready to see you. Please come up the stairs and follow me."

The group obliged, coming up the spiral stairs and following the woman down the hall that was the same quality as the rest of the cabin. There were but a few doors here, two side bedrooms and a master bedroom where the master was. The woman opened the door and stepped it with the others. The master bedroom was simple yet still high quality. Aside from the open closet door with several strange looking clothing and suits, there was an oak desk with a set of pens and paper scattered all over it, various notes on every paper. From Nyrette's position, they looked scientific and archaic. She was honestly a bit more astounded by how they were paper instead of datapads or computers.

The other two pieces of furniture here was the bed and nightstand. The nightstand was nice and had a candle, but Canopy Bed had velvety red shades drawn over them and pearly white satin sheets and a burgundy red comforter on top and matching pillows. Right in the middle of it all was an old man with several lesions on his face as well as a swollen neck. He had dark red hair that hung from his head freely. With great strain, he pulled himself back and up against the headboard of the bed. The woman took notice and ran to his side to help him, but he put up a hand. "No, Cynthia, my dear. I am fine. I can do this myself." She hesitated before pulling back and standing at his side. "Good morning, outlanders." He said. His voice was deep, but ragged. He sounded like he had the flu and was under a great deal of pain.

"It is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance. I am Delebor, Master alchemist and lord of this estate." He said, smiling as best as he could. Nyrette and Iisska moved up a bit closer while the others stayed back.

"Alchemist?" Nyrette said. "Um...pardon my language but what is an alchemist?"

"Alchemists, like my master, are men that are very skilled in creating salves, potions, medicines, nature-related spells and have a hand in the creation of Haemonculi." Cynthia said quickly.

"Cynthia had informed me yesterday that you had crashed in a metal beast on yesterday's eve and I am relieved to see that she is correct. Outlanders are a rare sight here on Eos." he took a moment to breathe and gather his strength. Nyrette chimed in while he recovered.

"Eos? Outlander? 'metal beast'? Where are we?"

"You are in the land of Eos." Cynthia spoke again. "Outlander is a term for those that have come from the stars."

"I apologize if I am being an ungracious host, ma'ams and sirs. I am afraid that I do not have much time and your arrival in my home has been rather...coincidental." he cut to the chase. "I am sure that you have noticed my skin and neck."

Cheshik came closer and looked at him, keeping a respectable distance away, inspecting him and trying to think of what disease he has, but nothing was coming to mind.

"Do not try and discern my affliction, sir. It is a disease that even I am unsure of, which is why I am in this predicament. It is a disease that was bred from the rats of the land, coming from a dark place. It spread quickly and two weeks prior to now, there as a small outbreak within my home. A cadre of them made it around the house and even as Cynthia dispatched them, one had reached me in the night and had bitten me. Since that day, I have been on the brink of death. If not for Cynthia's caregiving, I would have succumbed some time ago. I realize this is brash and disrespectful, but I must ask a favor of you four. He stopped again to recuperate. Cynthia spoke in his place.

"There is a tomb, four miles north of here that, because of the care I must give to my master, I have been unable to enter. My master, on his death bed, would like to ask you to enter the tomb and retrieve a cure from within." She said.

"Aaand you're paying us for this...right?" Iisska said, crossing his arms. He ignored the glare shot at him from Nyrette.

"Yes, outlander." Delebore said. Years ago, my estate had many servants and guards to help take care of the property, before I had constructed Cynthia. There is an Armory in the basement that has many weapons and armors that they used in their day to day protection of my home. From what I have gleamed from texts and heard from old friends in my youth, Outlanders require many metals for their metal beasts. Agree to scour the tomb for me and you may take as much as you please."

Nyrette crossed her arms and pursed her lips. This was a decent deal for them to do, but since they were so new to this land, she was a bit cautious. She knew Iisska was still weak from the lack of the force from here and they were completely unfamiliar with everything. Plus, they had no weapons other than Cheshik's sword and her boot knife. "Our own weapons are unable to work here." She said. "I ask that we have access to this armory before we leave so we can actually scour this tomb of yours."

"I do not see why that could not be a problem. Cynthia, if you would please?" He said softly as he slid back down into the covers and Cynthia lead the group back down the stairs and to the armory.

"I will be able to lead you to the tomb, but I must hurry back here and care for my master. I will bring markers for you to follow on your return." She lead them to the locked door and placed her hand near it. The group watched as her hand spun and morphed like it was made of liquid into the shape of an ornate key and stuck it into the lock, opening it and letting the group inside. "Please be quick. My master will not last for much longer. His heart will fail if you do not hurry." She bowed and waited beside the door for the group to conclude their armament gathering.

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

"Oh there's no doubt we can survive this." Nyrette said, sitting down next to Quin by the fire, placing her hand over hers. "We just survived what is probably the worst crash in all of our histories combined. Look at the ship, we should be dead. In fact, I'm pretty sure we are dead right now and we don't know it yet. That crash was BAD. It was worse than when the Imperius crashed into the senate building on Coruscant two cycles ago and hundreds died in that crash. The planet could be rigged to explode and we would end up alright at this point. We'll be fine." Hearing a whistle, she stood up and walked away for a few moments before returning with a steel canister and two mugs. She placed down a fresh, scalding, cup of coffee in front of Pike're and smiled. "Was going to surprise you on your birthday but you know how it goes. Constant danger and very little sleep. I'm certainly not getting any tonight. Cheshik?" She said and saw the Trandoshan holding a knife over two meters of log and carving it. "I am too excited for hunting. It has been decade since last hunt. Spear will not be ready by morning but it not matter. Iisska and I shall...." Realizing that Cheshik was going to talk about hunting for the next six hours, Nyrette looked back at Pike and shook her head before taking the cup she had to herself and downing it in one go and standing up. "I'm going to go scout the area a bit. I see better at night anyway, so I'll be around in the morning." She bent down and kissed Quin on the cheek before walking off and into the darkness, leaving Quin to Cheshik's ramblings.

Over the night, Cheshik could not hold himself back any longer and took off to hunt with his sword in hand. Though he wanted Iisska to hunt with him, the Togruta refused multiple times before Cheshik just grabbed him by his collar and dragged him off into the woods to make him do horrible things to possibly adorable or incredibly dangerous animals, denying him any sleep he was possibly going to get. Marquis came out in the night as Quin was left alone by the fire and sat with her. He tried to strike up a conversation, but an incredible weariness came over the woman and she just sort of fell over and lay in the grass. He chuckled silently and shook his head a bit before grabbing an emergency blanket and covering her up so she wouldn't freeze in the night air. The droid was silent, melencholy, as he stoked the fire and kept it alive with a little more wood. His best friend and lover sacrificed the entirety of the ship's power, including her own and the emergency power, to overcharge the shields and keep them alive. Circuits were fried all over the ship and the A.I. core was heavily damaged as well. He refused to think about it or worry himself more than he already was, but deep inside the robot's core, nagging away at his subconscious, was the feeling that Trinity may have sacrificed more than just the ship's power. Time would tell as the solar panels would gather the energy needed to repower the A.I. core and the ship itself, but Marquis couldn't predict when that would happen. Or if that would happen, for that matter.

____

In the morning, Cheshik and Iisska were the first to return. Cheshik had two large bags over shoulder full of fresh meat. Iisska was behind him, barely able to stand from how tired he was, carrying Cheshik's sword. The Togruta dropped the sword by the burned out fire and collapsed near the ramp to the ship and was very quickly starting to fall asleep...that is before Marquis spoke. "I got the beds ready over the night. Your room is all-" He didn't get to finish before Iisska started to groan and heave as he refused to stand up and instead used his hands to drag himself up the ramp and into the ship. His groans echoed out of the ship before a soft snoring replaced it.

"Wow." Cheshik said, lowering the bags to the ground. "That is most I see out of him all night." He shrugged and picked up the meat. "Is cold place for meat ready in ship?"

"Uh..." Marquis started. "Not fully. The freezer is only partially powered. But it is enough to keep the catch cold and preserved until we need it," He said as Cheshik took the bags to the ship door and whistled. Snickers poked her head out of the door and saw her master below with food. She crawled out onto the grass for the first time and took it slow at first, but, seeing as the planet's changed atmosphere wasn't affecting her, quickly grabbed one of the bags of food and went onto the other side of the ship to hungrily tear it open and bury her face in fresh meat, leaving Cheshik to place the other bag into the freezer, leaving some for Kobel as well. He would have to go hunting again soon, but he didn't mind.

Last, but not least, back to the camp side was Nyrette without her shirt on, holding something small in her shirt underbreast. Whatever she had was wrapped up in her shirt and she whispered to it as she entered camp. She looked up to Marquis, who's eye had gone a bright green with inquiry. "What do you have there, Nyrette?" He asked as Cheshik came down from the ship to join them and clean his blade.

"I'm not sure what species he is, but he looks like a dog." She let the Little thing's Head loose to show the others. It's tongue lolled out and it panted with happiness. "I found him a few hours ago, his parents were killed by hunters, which, incidentally, means we're not alone out here. I toted him all the way back and he seems happy enough. He was really scared of me until I got him into my arms, then he warmed right up to me." She smiled and placed him down. The little puppy walked around, sniffing the various things and debris of the ship that was around the camp before finding Quin still bundled up next to the fire, sniffing her a bit, and snuggling with her. He was exhausted after a long night. Cheshik looked at the little creature with a massive sense of guilt washing over him and dinner plate level pupils as he realized that the meat he had given to snickers most likely belong to two larger creatures that looked like the puppy.

"I see the coffee didn't do her much during the night." She said, finally seeing Quin.

"Not at all, it seems. She passed out shortly after you left. She tossed and turned a bit, but settled into that position around midnight...least what I assume is midnight via judging the rise of the moon. It is strange to see a moon in the sky that is not surrounded by buildings, stations, ships and transports of every size and shape possible." Marquis said, still melancholy.

Nyrette shrugged and sat down, feeling the weariness of the night starting to drag her down.

"I see you still can't get much sleep." He said.

"Yeah, but not nearly as bad. I found a tree to nap for a couple hours in during the night and...yah-curiously, Iheugh...I didn't have any bad dreams." She said, yawning at the same time.

"You had nightmares every night until Zen gave you those pills, right?" He remembered, crossing his arms.

"Right. Every night without stop. Last night I actually had a good dream. I'm not sure how to handle it to tell the truth." She admitted.

Marquis looked between her and Quin for a moment before making an apt suggestion. "I would take it as a sign and catch some sleep with Pike there. She has been a bit tossy-turny all night."

She nodded slowly and stood up, finally coming to a rest next to Quin and the puppy, leaving Marquis along with Cheshik. Marquis could tell Cheshik was about to burst from excitement and wanted to say something, so he obliged. "Alright...tell me all about your hunt."

"YES! Iisska and I went out into woods correct? We saw many creature that I have never seen before and it...."

And that's when Marquis turned off his hearing receptors and let Cheshik talk until his vocal chords gave out.

____

Right around midday, about 2Pm by Marquis' time, the crew finally started to awake from their slumbers and Cheshik finally shut up. Iisska refused to climb out of the ship and thus Kobel had him on his back to hop down from the ship. Nyrette tried to get up, but Quin's arm was cemented around her midsection and the puppy was laying on top of them, so she was stuck. The camp had been pretty nicely cleaned up, most of the smaller bits of debris was gathered in a pile in the back of the ship. Marquis and Cheshik enlisted the help of Kobel and Snickers to use their size and strength to tip the ship back into position so everybody can get up the ramp without crawling now. The landing gear was shot, but the ship was able to be held up at the very least.

After Nyrette instructed Marquis on how to properly brew coffee from coffee beans and mugs were passed around, a...very strange thing happened.

A mysterious woman showed up to camp.

The most striking thing about this woman was the bright blue mask she had on her face with a large pearl on her forehead. She had loose, yet angled, light pink hair and light yellow skin as well as a long, beautiful, yet angular like her hair, dress that was a mixture of light and dark pinks, but had two stripes down the front from collar to foot that was bright blue like her mask. Her hands were together, concealing the bright blue gloves underneath.

As Quin started to stir, Nyrette looked up to the woman and Marquis stood with cane in hand, approaching with a defensive posture in mind. "Who are you and why are you here?" He said.

Her voice was a mixture of robotic and human, yet it was pure and beautiful, high pitched yet not annoyingly so. "My master from across the lake. He requires your presence, outlanders. He means no harm towards you nor your party." She stopped, as if awaiting a command. "I must accompany you to my master's home. When you are ready, please say so."

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

Sealing all emotion behind a gate of blank expression, Zenithar put up a defensive wall of force power and negated the power that was choking Iisska. He put out his hand and called for his saber and, as it leaped out of Iisska's hand, started to circle the stranger in front of him. They were no more than forty yards apart, but the two walked parallel to one another, sizing each other up.

Something called to Zen as he looked at this beast of incredible power. The way he moved, the markings on his face, and the sword at his side. He felt an old memory bubble to surface, one of a lesson he learned long ago from his first master. A language.

j'us aras tave kojafonas nu vykti zhol?
(You are the hunter I take it?)

"kojafonas? nie."
(Hunter? No.)

"Kia nun kash zo dziuti iv amzi nu zenoti j'us tapti' nuo tave agent ant tu'iea kojasi."
(Lying to me is a waste of time. I know you come for the agent on your hunt)

"Ah j'us aras daus {then} kad sis kash nie kojasi sis kash jri errand"
(Ah. You are correct then. But this is no hunt. This is an errand.)

"nu doubt j'us valia buti gabus kia xauti ji nenx while nu live."
(I doubt you will be able to find her. Not while I live)

He stopped circling Zen, but still shifted his weight in a sort of lazy fight stance. He sighed with some dissapointment and boredom.

"Bored nu vykti zhol ja'um tikra tave squadron iv jidai anas meo dispatched stai dziutija vel than gana iv tu'iea amzi."
(Bored, I take it? I'm sure the squadron of Jedi that was dispatched here wasted more than enough of your time)

The second Zen had finished talking there was a blinding flash of energy. The sand that covered the bottom of the coloseum was blown upward as if struck by a meteor and surged up into the stands like a tidal wave. The planet shook and by the time nothing more but choking dust filled the air the stone of the foundation was mostly exposed and the newcomer had vanished undercover. The voices of the thousand spectators screaming was the only sound.

Standing on the foundation, Zen brushed off the dust from his cloak and wiped off his visor. "Iisska. Run."

He knew where the hunter was, he could feel his power like it was a beacon of light in the darkness. He bent over for a moment, removing his shoes and socks in a calm manner and breathing slowly. Once he was done, they were tossed at Iisska before the Togruta would run for his life. Slamming his foot down onto the foundation, the rocks and stone cracked and shot up into the air in chunks as the colleseum came apart. Taking a strong defensive stance, Zen used both his arms to direct the flow of the debris and send it in the direction of the hunter.

The desturbance in the wind from such debris being hurled at him was intense, more than enough for the sith to swiftly weave between the massive stones without the use of his eyes.

Seeing that the Hunter was in the tanglement of debris, Zen slammed his hands down to the ground and with it the debris came crashing down in a torrential rain.

His lungs filled with air as he felt the direction of the force around him change voilently. Instead of rejecting it or trying to avoid it, he turned it. His feet were planted one second and with the next exhalation he twisted tightly, hands outstretched and sent the incredible weight outward in a hurricane of dust, wind and stone with himself dead center in the eye. Visibility cleared almost immediately under the onslaught of sudden hundred mile an hour winds. The debris was sent crashing into the stands and walls and city surrounding the coloseum with bystanders caught in the way. The sith stilled instantly in proper stance and locked his eyes with Zen's.

Zen did not lose a step. Just as soon as the Hunter had landed, Zen was switching positions and slamming his heels down onto the sand and rock laden under-parts of the foundation, sending rippling waves of pure force energy through the ground to create shockwaves that sent spikes and waves of rock towards the Hunter several times before he instinctively started to move and avoid the inevitable counter.

The sith shot into the air to avoid the liquified ground and stuck a delicate, one footted landing atop of one of the many jagged rock spires that now formed the base of the ruined arena. Arms outstretched to keep his balance, he began seeking his target again. Finding him on the move already, he too began to sprint across the rough terrain toward the edge of the arena and up to the edge of one of the crumbling walls to make his escape.

Seeing the Hunter vying to escape, Zen outstretched his arms and sent a cascading wave of force into the walls that made it yank back. He ripped his own force energy out of the wall to catch the Hunter like a fish in a net and back into the arena. "ar j'us aras afraid kia mrias kojafonas j'us gal tezn kelias hom} kia momma scurus dabar" (If you are afraid to die, hunter, you can just run home to Momma Scurus now!) He impacted the ground again with his feet before drawing his sabers and igniting them. Something rumbled deep below the surface.

He hit the ground in a tight ball and rolled over his shoulder. With a strong kick off the ground, the air erupted around him as he broke through it at an unimaginable speed right at Zen. The long, black sword at his side was drawn just before impact where it cracked and spit against the energy of the light sabers.

Zen stood, unmoving against the force that the Hunter unleashed un him and finally got to look into his eyes up close. He smiled, seeing that he was fighting somebody that was more than a puppet, unlike the things in his dreams. He pushed against the Hunter and quickly impacted his foot against the sand again, though no rumbles came this time. He channeled the force into his arms now to push against the Hunter and force him back.

He let it happen, knowing better than to try and stand in the way of such things. His blade and sword arm shot backward with Zen's push and straightened immediately, letting the force flow off them easily, while his body twisted and nearly bent backward before delivering a powerful off hand uppercut to Zen's chest.

Zen let the attack hit him, sending him into the air like a rag doll, but he recovered quickly and used the force to propell himself downward right onto the hunter. He knew that the Hunter would dodge the attack, but the crater he made in the ground sent massive shockwaves and spikes erupting across the stadium, sending debris and rock jutting high into the air. He didn't stop there, using the force he had been spewing into the ground to tear it apart and create massive craters that lead into darkess as the ground tremored angrilly.

Despite his best attempts at speed and carefully focused reading and footwork he couldn't escape this torrent. The first shockwave swept to wide to be avoided or redirected and he found himself slammed backward into a fresh, towering pillar before being swallowed up by one of the fissures that had opened beneath their feet. He hit the ground hard, but somehow stuck both feet firmly and gave him a moment to retime his disturbed breaths. Bastard

"There it is. Wakie wakie." Zen said to himself as the hunter jumped out of the fissure. The tremors below were becoming more and more intense as whatever Zen was trying to wake was definitely awake now and it was only a matter of time before it would come for them. Now Zen outstretched his hand and ignited his sabers once more, beckoning the Hunter to him. He flourished with his sabers and took up a defensive stance.

His eyes narrowed. His sword was at the ready, held to the side across his body like a shield. He rushed toward Zen. The tremmoring did not go unoticed, but he had to focus on one thing at a time. A rush of air was left behind him as he ripped a wide circle to Zen's flank and came slashing low toward his legs.

Anticipated the rapid movements, Zen jumped up and over the Hunter and sent a wall of force power down on top of him and pushed himself back. He landed on the ground and came at him swinging, using both sabers to strike in a flurry of light and death.

The sudden pressure slammed him into the ground on his stomach, but he would not lay still. In one fluid moment he pushed himself up, swung his legs around and slid his body over his feet until he was in an extremely low, wide and immovable stance. He raised his blade to catch the first pummel of light sabers merely an inch from his face. With a desperate ferocity he blocked or dodged every attack and swiveled around his opponent moving more like a snake than a human. When he saw an opening he took it immedately and delivered a straight thrust at Zen's skull.

Zen reacted purely on instinct, bending backwards and avoiding the thrust by nearly bending his body in half to dodge the attack and rolled backwards and out of attack range. He jumped up and back into a fighting position, but threw his lightsabers instead. They circled around the hunter and came close to him, but missed by a wide angle. Using the force, Zen gripped onto the sabers and took control of them. They both seemed to take on a mind of their own and come after the hunter, all while Zen started to devote his body to dodging the Hunter and slamming his feet on the ground to further distrupt the Hunter and anger that which was below.

Sweat was begining to bead on his skin. The only saving grace he had was an impressive display of acrobatics that kept him from being eviscerated by the twin sabers hurtling through the air at him keeping him from having a single moment to re-establish control of the battle. Each time his feet touched the ground, if only for a split second at a time, he could feel the earthquake swelling in magnitude. And he could feel something big. Very big. He swept his foot out and crouched, spinning under a saber that was coming for his neck and lept into the air back up onto the edge of the arena. His guts urging him not to go back down there no matter how much he wanted this man's blood.

"Running now will only save you a small bit of your life, Hunter!" Zen yelled as he used the force to call his sabers back to his hands as he twisted and jumped high into the air. He came rocketing down to crash into the ground with a massive amount of force, creating a second crater. Behind him, the arena cracked and started to fall away into the chasm that had formed from the incredible uses of the force. From beneath the ground, the thing that Zen had been antagonizing awoke and had found the surface. Gargantuan claws gripped onto the sides of the arena and pulled up a truely giant of a beast. Having to be at least be 200 meters tall, a horrifying Zillo beast rose from the darkness!

And Zen was nowhere to be found....

A sneer spread across the sith's face. He was forced to make way for the gargantuan beast that rose from the depths of the planet. Damn him! He sheathed his sword and made his way quickly to the highest part of what was left of the coloseum and quickly observed the surrounding city. The area closest to ground zero was in absolute chaos. Huge chunks of stone had destroyed nearby buildings and dust blanketed everthing. Corpses dotted the streets and rubble and living citizens evacuated the area, screaming and running for their lives. The Zillo began to plow its way through the stone walls and slither out into the city proper. For a moment he considered destroying it, but then remembered his mission. They had a ship here somewhere. He just had to find the port.

He calmly pulled a communicator from his collar and allowed himself to watch the sheer chaos unfold for a moment or two.

"Prepare the ship for take off... and secure the port," he said.

And then he dashed down the walls and onto the city rooftops, giving the beast a wide berth and looking for his target once more.
___

Meanwhile, back at the ship.

.Nyrette stumbled into her room's bathroom and nearly tripped over her own feet as she grabbed onto the counter and pulled herself up in front of the mirror. She gripped the front of her mask and yanked it off, throwing it down to the floor and looking at the pockets of flesh that overed her skull's eye sockets. Even without eyes, she could see herself through the force and she did not enjoy what she saw. Pale...weak...pathetic. Darth Scurus was coming for her and she would never allow herself to be taken by her pets. Her breaths came out ragged, barely able to keep a steady deep breath. She reached to the mirror's side and found a handle that opened it. On the top shelf of the medical cabinet was a small black jar without a label. She reached up and pulled it down, opening it up and spilling the contents into her hand. It was little more than a black dart with a clear lid over the needle. It was a poison dart, but it was not something that was to ever be used on an enemy. It was a suicide dart used by covert agents too deep behind enemy lines to ever have a chance of recovery.

Just as she went to uncap it, she looked up and saw Pike're.

Quin didn't even wait to ask if she was okay or what was in Nyrette's hand. She lunged at her, tackling her in place and snaring her wrist in a vice grip. She wrenched at the dart with her other hand.

"Stop! What do you think you're doing!?" Quin yelled at her.

Nyrette tried to struggle against her friend to grab the dart, but stopped as she saw that it was futile. She couldn't even begin to muster the words to tell her of the fear that gripped her heart...but she tried. Through her chattering teeth and terror induced near insanity, she managed to get the words "D-Darth Scurus has Come for me. I..."

Quin did not release her arm even after she pried the dart loose and tossed it away. She kept Nyrette pinned.

"D-- Who? What are you talking about? Tell me what's wrong," she urged.

Nyrette could barely speak. She shook her head and struggled as memories that she had long since hidden from herself started to resurface. Horrifying tortures and executions at Darth Scurus' hand. The men and women that that horrifying demon had converted into her mindless slaves. Nyrette's struggles gave way as now she just pushed against Quin's arms and gripped onto her wrists. She kicked out Quin's legs, making her lose her balance the slightest bit to be able to get free. She didn't get up and run, nor did she try to grab the dart.

She pulled Quin into a deep embrace, burying her head into her shirt, sobbing.

Taken aback by the outburst, Quin froze for a moment, stuck in the tight hug. Soon she relaxed and wrapped her arms around Nyrette and rubbed her back gently. A tired frown formed on her face and she sighed, burying her face into Nyrette's hair for a moment.

"You're going to be fine," she was unsure if her words had any truth to them.

From somewhere she could feel the ground shaking. As if an earthquake had begun or if something massive was impacting the ground over and over again. Her stomach rose into her throat and her nerves lit up with unease.

"Come on," she whispered, "We need to get this rust bucket out of here."

____

Sprinting like a mad man, Zen was using whatever shreds of force power he had left to run like a man on fire to the city. On the way, he found Iisska doing the same and he yanked him up like a toy doll! It was nary a few minutes before they were back at the ship and Iisska's lekku were stuck in weird positions because of the wind.

"Take off now! Anywheres! Put in a coordinate, start the ship, get out of here! Go Go GOOOO!!!!" Zen screamed as he sealed the loading bay doors and ran to go find a turret. Just as he did though, he remembered he was carrying Iisska. He dropped him like a sack of bricks as the ship did it's final preps and primed the engines. It'd be less than a minute before take off.

"What's going o-" Trinity tried to yell over the speaker system, but Zen just yelled. "GO NOW OR WE'RE ALL DEAD. BAD GUY WITH A BAD GUY STICK THAT I CAN'T KILL. BIG MEGA MONDO THREAT. RUN AWAY."

"Where the void are we going?!" She responded.

"ShitshitshitshitshitLAPISSYSTEMGO." Zen panicked and pulled himself into the turret.

"Why the lap-" Zen cut her off. "JUST FUCKING GO DAMN IT OR WE'LL BE DEAD. NOT JOKING."

"Trinity!" Iisska choked out between gasps, "Just go. We'll fill you in after."

Trinity gave them both a curt nod and vanished from the holoprojector. All engines and thrusters went online and the Harpoon roared to life. As they hovered out of the port and cleared the high walls of their hangar the titanic creature tearing the city apart came into clear view. Dust and smoke was rushing to the air in great clouds and pillars already. Everyone on deck was uncomfortably silent.

Trinity spoke in a very sharp tone, "There had better be a lot of 'filling in,' boys."

Leaving the city to it's destruction, the Harpoon's orbital thrusters engaged and the ship sped into the sky. The crew believed that they had been able to slip away with several Geonosians ships that had also managed to escape from the gargantuan beast. Once they had broken free of the atmosphere the continued to speed away from the planet but Iisska was still feeling an overwhelming ammount of discomfort.

"Isn't this the part where we jump to hyperspace?" he asked.

"We aren't the only ones making the jump," Trinity said calmly, "As soon as I have an opening in the route we'll--"

A deafening explosion interrupted her and the ship was hurled sideways. Alarms went off, the flight deck lit up in red and the control panel was covered in blinking lights.

"What was that!?" Iisska yelled at her.

"We've been hit! Shields are down! Ship closing in behind us! It's... Well..." Trinity yelled back.

She threw up a visual on the headsup display. The ship was long, thin and jagged. It looked like it's hull had been wrought from swords instead of plates. Large curved wings reached out infront of it like a vulture coming down on a carcass. Iisska's mind rushed for an identification. He didn't have it. Never had he seen or heard of a ship like that. It was the size of an interceptor, but... The tightness came back to his chest. That feeling that had been branded into him so clearly.

"That's him..." he said.

"Who!?" Trinity yelled.

The ship lurched as she began emergency evasion mannuvers and began to fire up the turrets. The interceptor behind them fired another round of laser torpedos. The ship shook as they were caught with the last one in the volley. The enemy ship tore overhead and turned wide in front of them. Trinity unloaded a deluge of laser fire back at it.

"No! Don't fight him! We're taking too much damage!," Iisska pleaded with her, "I'm making the jump now."

"Stop! You're going to get us killed! If we jump into another ship--" she argued.

IIsska had already entered the override sequence and siezed power of the engines from her. He began the jump sequence.

"Trinity, we're going to die anyway if we stay here any longer! You get agonizing death, instant death, or slim chance of survival! Want to keep arguing with me!?"

There was nothing but silence from the T.I.

The universe around them stretched and warped and the disorting stars and lasers filled the flight deck with an eeirie light as the were stretched. Then they jumped.

Zen was in the back of the ship, near the engines. There was a massive hole in the back that opened up to the stars. There was a simple energy field that kept the ship safe from losing oxygen and kept it safe from the effects of hyperspace. Zen watched out the back as the hunter was left behind when they made the jump to hyperspace and he started to get a strange feeling on the back of his neck. His hair stood on end...he could feel something coming. He ran to the wall and hit the button for the intercom. "Everybody hold on!" He yelled.

Just as he did, the ship lurched in hyperspace as something hit them and hit them hard. Zen was thrown across the room and ended up pasted to the wall as the ship was ripped out of hyperspace. Trinity sounded over the comms. "The hyperspace lane! It collapsed! Off the port side of the ship! There's a black hole!"

Standing back up, Marquis looked out the cockpit window and watched with horror as the ship lurched and turned toward the black hole that had them in the grasp of it's gravity vortex. There was nothing they could do. He helped Iisska to his feet before sitting down at the cockpit and sitting for a few moments, sighing slowly before he flipped on the intercom. "She is correct," he said solemnly. "There is a black hole that collapsed the hyperspace lane. We're trapped, the hyper drive is overloaded, thrusters are all but gone, and life support is starting to fail...." He trailed off for a moment and let that sink in. "I...do not think we're going to make it out of this one. From the rate we're drifting into the vortex I would say we have...half an hour before we are...well. You know." He turned off the intercom and bent over, placing his head on the console.

Cheshik had run to the ladies' rooms to check on them and found Quin and Nyrette in Nyrette's bathroom, holding each other even more tightly now that they knew that it would only be a few minutes more before they were gone. He almost went in to see them but his better judgement said that he shouldn't and he retreated to find Iisska in the lounge with Zen, sharing a few drinks in silence. He sat down with them and got a few heavy ones.

"Guess this is it, huh?" Nyrette said, leaning up against the cabinet on the floor of the bathroom with Quin close nearby. She had calmed down finally, but was more depressed than terrified now.

Quin slid down to the floor as well, sitting right beside her. She stared at the floor, pulled her knees to her chest and laced her fingers together.

"I suppose it is," she said quietly.

Nyrette interlaced her hands with Quin's and placed her head on her shoulder. "Thank you."

"For what? Dragging you all over the galaxy and letting us get killed?"

"Being he best thing to ever happen to me."

Quin's mouth twisted up into a frown, "You're welcome... "

"No, really. Thank you. I...couldn't really trust anybody until I met you. Saved me from dying a horrible death...well, one far worse than this one anyway."

"Out of the frying pan?" Quin managed a chuckle.

"I'll take fire over immortality-based torture any day." She said with a smile.

There was a long pause between the two as they sat in silence, holding one another with their eyes closed.

"Getting torn apart in a black hole is one way to escape that, true... And... I'm glad I met you too. I'd have saved you a hundred times more if you'd be there to keep me sane," Quin sighed, "It's strange. I was always told to die heroically. To never go down without a fight. Yet here I am feeling nervous, and scared and confused and sitting around with my thumb up my ass. I always thought I'd be shot, or cut down, or run over by a tank or something more gritty... I guess I don't know how to deal with this."

"To be honest, I'm sure stranger things have happened to you." She nudged her.

Quin snorted, "Point in case. With all we've seen and done. This is how it ends. Doesn't it seem lackluster to you? I mean, I can't imagine some of the close scrapes you must have had... And yet you seem okay with it all."

"Honestly. There aren't many better ways to die. Yeah, we're going out in a black hole in some corner of the universe with a bad name somebody probably made up on the spot, but..." She paused. "I'm dying next to somebody I care deeply for. I'd rather die like that than die in something exciting any day."

Quin gave Nyrette's hand a squeeze. For a moment she looked at her face and then down at their hands clasped together and then she had to look away.

"You've convinced me. I have to agree," her voice cracked.

"Did...did your voice just crack? I have to admit, for you, that's the most adorable thing I've ever heard."

"No. My throat's just dry. Stress and all that," she sniffled.

"Oh come here you." She pulled Quin's face and kissed her as their physical forms started to distort from the gravity.

Within the last few moments of their lives together, the world began to stretch and distort. Their faces soon became unrecognizable and the crew accepted their fates as they blinked out of existence.

...

...

Galaxies away, far outside the solar system, a black energy ripped through the Cosmos, making the very universe itself ripple and tear at the seams as a minuscule black hole opened above a huge planet. At first, it sat silently, but then, against any and all probability in all of existence: A miracle happened.

The Harpoon shot out of the black hole which turns out it was a worm hole and fell towards the planet with incredible velocity. Inside the ship, the crew all looked around with amazement and Zen was the first to yell. "WHOO. NOT DEAD!" he put up his hands screaming bloody victory. "BITE ME, GRIM REAPER. YOU AIN'T GETTING MY BONY BUTT QUITE YET. WHOO."

"Zen." Cheshik said.

"WHOOOOO!" Zen ignored him.

"ZEN." Iisska yelled.

"WHOOOOOOOO! DANGER ZONE BEST ZONE!"

"ZEN" Cheshik, Iisska, and Marquis over the intercom screamed and finally snapped him out of it. "We are entering the stratosphere of the planet! Brace yourselves!" Marquis yelled out.

Back in the bathroom, disconnecting from her lover's embrace, Nyrette and Quin both looked around then back at one another. They both started to tear up and cheer at the same time as they were granted the gift of life before they realized what was happening and ran out to try and join the others in a screaming choir.

Coming down over the planet, the ship plummeted towards a huge forest. The ship erupted into a horrific fireball as the crew screamed with terror all the way down to the planet. In a last ditch effort, Trinity transferred all of the power in the ship to the kinetic shields and even shut herself down in the process. The shields flared and the front thrusters kicked on several hundred feet before impact.

The ship slowed down barely enough to make the impact any better, but the shields definitely helped as the ship slammed into the ground, crushing trees and carving a deep rut in the forest. They skidded for what must have been hundreds of feet, the crew having been pinned to the ceiling of the ship from the hit. The ship finally came to a stop just before a small lake and came to a rest with a sickening groan.

The crew peeled themselves off of the ceiling and plopped down to the floor. Some had to crawl down the walls while others just got up from the floor. Everybody groaned and complained of the pain, but then they all realized that they were all alive and well! As a group, they ran to the landing bay and found the animals hanging out on the walls, looking invincible as ever. Zen's speeder was totaled though. It had several scratches.

Heading towards the docking bay, they opened it up and it extended out as far as it could, overextending to have a corner touch he ground so they could slide down easily to the soft grass below. First thing Nyrette did was kiss the ground like she was seeing it for the first time in a thousand years.

"Oh man!" Zen exclaimed as he climbed down the loading ramp to the ground below. Looking around, he saw that they had in fact crashed on the edge of a lake of some sort in the middle of a huge forest. They had no clue where they were in the galaxy or if they were even still IN the galaxy. Zen took a deep breath and planted the first foot onto the dirt of this new planet aaaaand he went forward and was face down in the dirt. He hit it hard.

Running to his side, Nyrette tried to help as Iisska jumped down to join her. While Nyrette got to him, Iisska too started to act strangely. Though it was less comatose and more puking his guts out. "The force it's...not even here." Nyrette said, looking around. Through her force enhanced vision, she could barely see more than a few dozen feet in front of her. Most of the trees were just shapes against darkness, unlike how she could see just fine on the ship. "There is so little here that I can barely see. Oh. And you can't even hear me because you're throwing up...um...QUIN!"

It wasn't but a few minutes before help came and the group got the boys back onto the ship. Iisska's pukiness stopped, but Zen was out cold.

"Where in all the galaxy and the void itself are we?" Nyrette questioned the universe and everything in it.

____

Eos. A massively gigantic world located far far outside the known galactic universe. In a completely different galactic system away from the empire, republic, and the war. Via a wormhole in space that collapsed a hyperspace route, the crew has been taken to a place where the force barely exists, where blasters that were previously given power by the force are now flimsy pieces of metal, and where lightsabers aren't able to even ignite. All of their equipment would be useless here as in their home galaxy, the force twisted reality in such a way that it enabled the factions and races of the republic to create impossible weapons and contraptions that simply "work".

From the deep mines where dwarves work tirelessly to mine exceedingly rare gems and stones to sell to their allies as cores for their powerful Haemonculi, to the five hundred kilometer wide mega-forests that the avian Ruton and Elvish peoples enjoy their seclusion in. The land is vastly unexplored, with possibly thousands of ancient tombs, dungeons, castles, and ruins left to rot for hundreds of years. Untold dangers permeate the land as well, dark sorcerers create armies of the undead to further their own goals while witch hunters perform their name sake with witches and warlocks in their vile covens across the land.

But not all is doom and gloom as within the sprawling cities like Xoria, the capital of the land where the monarchy council rules with a harsh but fair fist, and Rennolk, the city of mages where sorcerers and mages of all caliber work to advance science and create even more powerful concoctions and creations that could save or doom the world in less than a night if let loose. The land is not without it's beauty as it has been left untainted by industrialization and harvesting of the land. It is truly a land of opportunity for the crew of the Harpoon as even though there is a pan-galactic community off planet, Eos has been designated as a planet in early development and thus off worlder intervention has slim to no chance of happening. With the ship in shambles and no way to actually have it in working order for a very very long time, the crew would have to get comfortable. They will get to be here for a while.

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

-Reserved for the story summaries-

Prologue and opening
Arch one: Iisska and Quin meet Zen.
Arch two: Tu'cha'kah.
Arch three: Life on the hyperlanes.
Arch four: Zen leaves for a time then comes back later because reasons.
Arch five: Marquis vs Radon Thexys.
Arch six: An errand for a dear friend.
Arch seven: The hunter (Really short arch)
END Book One
START book two.
Prologue and opening
Arch One: Eos and the Haemonculi.
Arch Two: The Twins
Arch Three: Quin Alone
Arch Four: Finally some rest!
Arch Five: Harpoon online
Arch Six: Trial of Nyrette
Arch Seven: Iisska Alone

Haemonulus. Detailed as the characters encounter their kind.

They are powerful magic beings brought to life by very powerful alchemy that bounds them to various purified rocks and gems throughout the world of Eos. The process for which is far too complicated for our heroes so it won't be accounted for at this time.

There are hundreds of varieties of different rarities, each unique in their own little way.

Most wear magically bonded masks called Inhibitor Masks that were created shortly after Eos' first Haemonculi surfaced a few dozen years prior to the RP. These masks keep the balance of emotions within the haemonculi in check and ensure that they remain docile by eliminating their emotions outright. While they are stronger, faster, regenerate wounds very quickly, and excel at their duties phenomenally, they lose any sense of humanity in the process. A mask can be easily removed by other magic wielders simply by gripping it, but doing so will permanently sever the link between the mask and the Haemonculi.

Removing the mask begins a long and almost harrowing process for the Haemonculi where they learn from the people around them and forge a personality all their own, much like a child.

The Heroes have just met the Pearl Haemonculus, Cynthia. Servant of Master Alchemist Delebor.

Pearls are among the weakest of the Haemonculi constructs but also the most numerous of them all as well. They are often used as servants or escorts to posh parties as many others types are much more rare and the pearl tends to stand out in a crowd.

While not able to really take a strong hit without armor, the pearl makes up for this with a large amount of speed and the ability to shape shift certain parts of their body to suit their needs. Such as summoning defensive weapons, shields, keys, body-bound containers, and many other shapes. They are able to sharpen any part of their body to a razor's edge to give whatever they form an extra kick. They are also able to use their liquid-like forms to temporarily absorb and then copy the properties of whatever they absorb.

Drawbacks however outweigh the positives, which make the pearl constructs unsuitable for anything other than servitude and last minute defense.

They are fragile, their bodies are weak physically and they heal slowly. They tend to be overprotective and the magic that holds them together can be corrupted easily. If their inhibitor mask is removed, they will learn as haemonculi do, but may eventually start acting up and being erratic. They can sometimes be very foolhardy and are difficult to calm, though this depends on whom they learn from.

_

TBA Haemonculus that totally isn't steven universe fangasming.

_

Documents on "Blood Cultists"

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

Standing in an ancient throne room, the Gray Sith Master was motionless, twin sabers in hand and wrapped in black armor. The darkness that made it's home in the room was so intense and powerful that the very lights that danced from his sabers were hushed until they were mere candles in the expanse. There was a throne in the middle of the room with two large braziers bearing dark blue flames in front of it on each side. In the throne with her legs crossed, the golden masked woman, Darth Scurus, sat as she used the force to hold a lithe woman-that Zen recognized as Nyrette-in a force choke. Though she too bore a golden mask upon her face. She struggled for breath as Darth Scurus had her life in the palm of her hand.

Zen stepped forward and two more figures stepped from the darkness. Both with golden masks who's brilliance pierced the darkness. The Gray Sith twirled his sabers in anticipation of battle with the two, but as they drew close, Zen recognized them. One was a woman, a heavy repeating blaster in hand and a grenade launcher on her belt. Quin. The other was robed like him with a bright white saber. Iisska. Zen hesitated as he saw his pupil and friend before him approaching to do their master's bidding.

A sickening snap made Zen's stomach turn upside down as Scurus crushed Nyrette's throat and stood, descending down the steps to join her thrall. Black lightning around her feet made the floor crack and bubble as she built her energy, approaching with a dark intent. Zen shuffled his feet a little and prepared to die.

They, too, will fall to her will.

____________

Shrugging off the shadows that played at the edges of his mind, Zen refocused on the problem before him. He could feel it and he had no doubt that Iisska did too. A very powerful being was here. One that was building his power like Zen was and could very well match him. His knuckles were white as he gripped onto his sabers. He turned towards the rest of the group, Cheshik, Quin, Nyrette, Iisska, and Marquis, and approached them for a moment.

"Pik'ire. Take the others back to the ship and prep it for immediate departure."

The fuck?! would be her response as she held her blaster close. She refused to leave after just getting here. They had come here to fight and win money, not run away. But Zen stopped her and she would feel an incredible force push against her skin that left her mind reeling. "Do not contest with my judgement today, Pik'ire. There is a threat that can crush you without a thought. He...is a hunter." He said, crossing his arms. "I can feel him, building his power to challenge my own. He is here for somebody...an alien to our galaxy. I am not sure whom, but his power is...very familiar. A remnant of an old faction of warriors that left their mark on Korriban."

When Zen said Korriban, Nyrette went pale. She remembered that place, an ancient home for the sith and the empire of the past. She had to learn of it in the Imperial Agency. It was one of the places of power and a capital for the ancient empire, and it was one of Darth Scurus' target planets from which to rule. She gripped onto Quin's shoulder and spoke. "It's insane and peculiar, but I think we should listen. Look around." Having been prompted, the party took a glance around the room to see that every contestant was uneasy and nervous. The raw force power that permeated the area from Zen and the Hunter's meditations was leaving an impact on the minds of the people. "She is correct." Marquis said. "Even I can feel it. There is something else at play here that is making me uneasy. Come on. I am not going to risk taking on some ancient warrior for a few more credits when we have enough to live comfortably for another fifty cycles." He grabbed his rifle and motioned for the others to head out. It took Quin a few more moments to accept it, but she nodded and followed Nyrette and the others out. Iisska was just grabbing his things to go with them when Zen stopped him.

"No, Iisska. Not you. You're staying here to fight with me."

Iisska's response was swift and appropriate. He tried to turn and walk out, but Zen's grip told him that he was genuinely worried. "This hunter will not stop until he has what he has come for. My intuition, and yours no doubt, say that it has to deal with us, so naturally we have to deal with him instead. Here." He handed his white light saber to him, keeping Naga Sadow's for himself. "Whether you like it or not, it will serve you until you finish yours." He sighed. "Doesn't mean you can't punch things though...and it doesn't mean that I still won't punch something bigger than you either." He smiled as they turned. It was then that they noticed that several others in the crowd around them had left as well, taking the cue from Marquis that leaving would probably save their lives.

They were right about that. Leaving will save them a long, agonizing death.

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

Iisska had been space hitch-hiking with humans long enough to understand the basic gist of Christmas and all the bullshit that came with it, but it didn't change the fact that he tended to fail hard and often in the buying things for other people department. Therefore he stuck with Quin for most of their shopping spree to get a few nudges in the right direction.

For Marquis and Trinity Iisska presented two mysterious looking drives. Small little things, easily installed anywhere a spare port could be found or hooked up, but easily accessed by multiple droid and T.I. platforms and programed with just over 500 of the galaxy's most common languages. From Quin came a broad selection of audio discs that could be uploaded into the ship or a memory core and played back almost anywhere. All of them music, the majority classical.

For Nyrette Iisska got a set of "kick-ass shades." Single lensed, very fashionable and 100% reflective. As a plus they were constructed from tempered glass and she would be hard pressed to get them to shatter.

Cheshik received a rather heavy, bulky, cold and somewhat... squishy package that had to be kept on ice and was wrapped in brown paper from Iisska. Inside was roughly five pounds of steak. Not synthesized, never frozen, fresh, real steak. From Quin something to help poor space faring exotherms stay warm in the frigid vacuum when the ship's radiant heat couldn't cut it. A snazzy looking thermal jacket. Soft, comfortable and the thing held onto any shred of heat available like it was a life or death situation.

Iisska would receive a similar coat from Quin as well. However she was quite taken aback when she received a small box from him. Something that obviously didn't take bullets or explode in anyway. It was a golden and black ornate hair clip that would match the one dress she owned. It was similar to the ones high class women wore on many of the city planets. And he bought it all by himself.

The other thing he bought all by himself (against all of Quin's protests and warnings and threats) was for the entire crew. Nerf guns. Nerf guns for everyone. He walked past them at a toy shop and nearly broke his own neck doing the universe's most excited double take to date.

After all the festivities were said and done and the rest of the crew was winding down, Quin pulled Nyrette aside. She sat down next to her on the sofa and swiftly hooked a necklace on a long chain around her neck. It happened so suddenly and Quin looked away after. Nyrette would be able to feel that it was warm to the touch. She had been wearing it under her clothes before. On the chain was a pendant.

"It's a sun shield. They supposedly protect the wearer from shadows and unwanted eyes and harm or some such nonsense," Quin said, "I'm not sure about that, but I would wear it on missions with the Republic and a lot more running around with these idiots... Somehow it always made me feel a little better. Just the tiniest bit safer. I think you might need it more than I do though. Merry Christmas."

---

"Damnit!" Quin threw herself back down into her chair, "Trinity you're not seriously changing our course to-- Yes. Yes you are. Trin..."

"If you would like to chase him down and attempt to argue your point further, Pike, you are more than welcome to. But I think we all know how that will turn out," Trinity responded.

Quin let out a deep sigh, "What an idiot. This is so obviously a set up for... something... I need to see if I can track that signature."

As she turned to the communications grid and started typing furiously Iisska seemed to stare off into space behind her. His brow furrowed.

"Hey, do you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what? My ears still feel like they're bleeding from that damned advert. Maybe it's still ringing around in your head," she said.

"No... It sounds like a guitar... and singing," he said.

"Wait," she stopped working, "I hear it. That's... Oh don't tell me."

"Yeah. Is that..."

"Yeah. It's an eighties montage."

"Wait, a what now?"

"I'm going to nail Zen to the floor and shove that speeder right up his--"

If they were going to make it out of the gladiatorial clusterfuck that Zen was so eager to wrap them up in they would have to prepare. They weren't ready for another fight, but they would be. Iisska found himself thrown head long into even more intense martial training. Not just punching things. At one point Zen bound his hands behind his back and made him focus on footwork and kicking alone. He had never seen much use for his legs other than running and jumping up until now. The soreness in his muscles and also his ass from falling down at every turn was too real. But every damn hour there was Zen with more stupid training. Running, squats, drinking coffee, lunges, weight lifting, welding the strut they broke learning to put the force behind a roundhouse kick, combo drills, dodging random objects being hurled across the room, taking a shower, meditating through some of the most skull splitting noises imaginable.

Things got a bit out of hand when it was decided that the best way to learn to sidestep and throw off an opponent fluidly and effectively was to let Cheshik test out his new Zwiehander on him. Zen had caught him diligently practicing away with it on a dummy and it had put ideas in his head. "Hey, you wont make the same mistake twice this way!" he encouraged, "Or live to see tomorrow for that matter. Mnf. Damn that sword looks sexy on you Lizardman."

Quin busied herself with Marquis in taking over the work space in the cargo hold, taking apart weapons and making sure the power output was at its maximum and that every part was in perfect condition. She practiced loading and unloading so that it was as in as few fluid motions as possible. Marquis even shared a few sharpshooting tips and tricks with her picked up from his assassination days. With the recent series of shitstorms and the couple of days worth of hyperspace jump montage training refresher course she felt almost more skilled than she was when she was at the top of her game with the Republic.

There was even time to get some sparing in with Nyrette after breakfast. A breakfast which they tried to have a decent conversation over but it mostly consisted of "WHAT?" as the ever present music was a bit too loud to ignore. Then Zen streaked through the kitchen screaming "BANG BANG, BITCHES!" and they gave up entirely... except for the exchange a smile and a wink.

Through blood, sweat, tears, hacking, some light reading and cup of tea the crew was becoming pumped to put on a show of blood for the masses. If it wasn't all a trap like Quin had been insisting non stop. Unfortunately the message did trace back to Geonosia and not some dead end in space which didn't help her case against Zen even if everybody else believed her.

Next the Harpoon was pulling into Geonosian space and landing in the space port of a large but uncivilized city. The sun was rising over the huge colosseum in the center of the city as Zen and Iisska stood above the empty stands looking down into the arena. The red stone walls and red cliffs in the distance beyond positively glowed. It would be a few hours before any fighting began. Zen inhaled deeply as the music finally began to fade.

"I am the warrior," he said, "victory is mine."

"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED!?" Iisska screamed at him.

---

In the under-works of the arena, the crew had been signed in and were doing last minute warm-ups, gear-ups and check-ups. Quin came up to Iisska after cinching up her combat armor and securing her blaster, grenades, and a seriously sharp and serrated knife to her belt. She had decided to leave the launcher behind as it would only slow her down. Iisska was binding his wrists and fitting his gauntlets. He was going sleeveless but wore the new lekku wraps and boots and had both blasters crossed on the back of his hips.

"No light saber?" she asked.

"No. Still can't cut the crystals right," he said, "Don't think I'll ever have the kind of pref... pre... focus."

"Precision?"

"Yeah. That."

"Maybe someday. Practice makes miracles. You ready?"

"Meh. I think I have the flu," he sighed.

"The flu? Can you even get that?"

"I don't know. I feel nauseous. Have been since we landed. Thought I was gonna lose last night's dinner in the port."

"So sit out," she shrugged.

"Nah, can't now. Signed the papers. And I don't want anybody to think I'm trying to pussy out. Everybody else is gonna fight so... And it's not like... I don't have a fever or anything... I can still fight."

"Nervous?" Quin asked.

"No... I can't think of words. Worse than nervous."

"I know. This is stupid and there is no word with quite the right magnitude to describe just how reckless. Just keep your eyes peeled for anything strange and I think we'll be okay. Zen's gonna be with us and as insane as he is I don't think he'd ever let us get killed... maybe... probably... I'm not helping am I?"

"You're not."

Quin sighed, "I'm sorry. I'll leave you be," she began to walk and spoke over her shoulder, "You should probably say something to Zen about that nausea."

She continued to make rounds through the under-works, mostly to check out the other fighters. Most of them looked like mercenaries here for the prize money. She doubted they would wind up facing any of them as enemies, but one could never be too sure in a game where the rules are always changing. There was a long row of caged animals, but none of them looked all that impressive. The dangerous stuff must be somewhere else if it even existed. For a moment she wondered if there even was anything more dangerous. No. There had to be. She could hear the crowds upstairs. Such a big audience wouldn't show up to small stuff. Her explorations were called short by one of the ugly bug creatures calling her group up to the gate. She went willingly but wore a scowl on her face. She liked nothing about this. The entire crew stood at the gate waiting. Beyond it's bars was the brightly sunlit sands of the arena. The air rippled close to the ground and she could feel the dry heat even standing in the shaded entrance.

She stood next to Nyrette. She couldn't be sure but the woman seemed more pale than usual. Quin kept her cool though she continued to feel pangs of worry.

"I have a theory," she said quietly, "Have you ever seen insects fly into a flame? Maybe every living being in the galaxy has that same suicidal drive toward some object or vice or practice. The same drive we look down upon insects for and we just don't know it. Because every time I turn around I found myself inexplicably sucked into a battle no matter how hard I try to run the other way. Do you think anybody ever rewrites that part of themselves? Do we ever get to move on to another, better life?"

The gate slowly started to grind and screech open.

"Ah, never mind," she said in frustrated tone, "I guess I wanted to, ah, well what I had intended to do before I started running my mouth on something that had nothing to do with my original intention when I walked up next to you..."

Quin stopped talking, frowned deeply and rolled her eyes. Her shoulders sank in defeat for a second and then she quickly turned and kissed Nyrette roughly on the lips. When she pulled away she was beet red.

"I've got your back out there."

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

Kneeling, defeated, before the black obelisk in the Korriban desert, Zen cast his eyes upward as the sun started to set behind the stone. is eyes were blackened and cold, a testament to the darkness that penetrated his very being and took hold of his soul. He looked straight ahead and reached out his hand to lay it on the Obelisk. It was colder than any substance he has ever encountered in his 187 years of life. His hand froze to the spot as blackened ice formed over it and spread up to his forearm, freezing his cloak to his skin. He sat motionless for nary a half second before a bloody red hand clamped down on his wrist. He looked up to see her. The mistress with the golden mask on his right, and on his left a second grabbed his other hand and placed it against the obelisk, mirroring his right hand and freezing it. He watched the woman turn and show that she too had a golden mask, but he recognized her. Long, pitch black hair, slender body. It was Nyrette, somewhere inside, he knew it. All at once, starting from the middle, cracks along their masks formed and carved an unnatural swath across the metal and to the outer edges. Time seemed to come to a standstill. Wind stopped whipping across his face and the sun ceased it's drooping.

Their faces opened. A deathly screech became everything he knew or could ever know all within an instant. Behind the masks was...nothing. Darkness. Void-No. Not even the void has the level of darkness that made it's home behind the golden masks. He felt ribbons of cloth tightly wrap around his ankles and legs, pinning him in place as the darkness drew closer to engulf him. He was to be one with the darkness now, with no chance of survival. He laughed.

There never was any chance of survival.

______

Awaking with a start, Zen swung his legs out over the bed and planted them on the floor. His eyes were sunken and his bed was almost soaked with sweat from the nightmare. But he knew that it wasn't a nightmare at all. It was a premonition. Darkness was coming, an unending shadow that would engulf the galaxy. Not to conquer or subjugate it, but to snuff it out.

And there was nothing he could do. One of the most powerful things in the galaxy, able to crush cruise ships in his hands and fend off cannon fire with nothing but his mind...and there was nothing he could do to stop the oncoming slaughter of trillions. This was not even a question of how to balance the force. This 'thing' coming to the galaxy was neither light nor dark. It was a creature beyond any labels or conventional trappings. It was beyond evil and malicious.

Darth Scurus.

None, Not even the force itself would be safe.
______

In the morning, the crew took off from Nal Hutta, having grown tired of the smell of muck and burning factory. They had difficulty deciding where to go next as now everything was back to normal. They had the whole crew here and healthy. There was love blossoming in certain parts of the ship, Marquis didn't turn into a maniacal robot from the power core in his chest, Zen was actually training Iisska again and they were already catching up on what was missed, plus, Zen was a...lot calmer and less of an ass already. For once, Quin might just smile.

Sitting in the lounge in the same area they were last night, the crew discussed their next destination. Marquis wanted to return to find a tropical world and actually have a proper vacation with Trinity and she agreed. Nyrette wanted to find an outer rim world and get away from the wars and Quin agreed on that. Cheshik was in between on the two and was just happy if everybody was happy, cause he was a bubbly kind of person that didn't care about where they went as long as family was together. Iisska tried to speak, but Zen said that he wouldn't get to get a vacation because they had a lot of force studies to catch up on.

Arguing as they normally did, Zen stood up and planted a foot on the coffee table and threw down a datapad that he had been looking at. "See he number there? We have four hundred seventy three million credits. Everything Radon owned. WE. ARE. GOING. CHRISTMAS. SHOPPING. YOU ALL FORGOT CHRISTMAS WAS NEXT WEEK, DIDN'T YOU?!" Everybody got sheepish and quiet for several moments as Zen chastised them. He ignored Quin's rambly crap about how they had been locked up, tortured, shot at, nearly killed, poisoned once, slapped, and in Iisska's case: made fun of for being a virgin.

"We're going to Coruscant and we are going shopping. Any objections? No? Then set a course! Christmas!"

"But I don't like Christmas." Said Iisska, crossing his arms. Before he knew it, there was four blasters and two lightsabers at his throat.

He changed his tune.

____

Taking the ship to Coruscant, they slipped by Republic security and went down into the city. The crew had a relatively decent time, not getting mugged for once and Iisska actually getting hit on by a very masculine looking woman. It almost went somewheres if Nyrette hadn't told him about the woman's 'special qualities' that she was hiding. Long story short, trip ruined.

The crew had purchased one another gifts over the following week and got a tree that Zen would no doubt refuse to be let taken down until next christmas and decorated the lounge in a smattering of lights and decorations. Christmas lights were hung above the bar and about the room, each chair had snowflakes on them, Kobel got a christmas sweater that he almost immediately destroyed for being too ugly and even tasting disgusting, snickers was forced to wear a santa hat, and various presents went under the tree. By the time the crew was done, there was more presents than there was tree. Every night the lights would be dimmed and the room cast into a green and red light that pulsed between the two slowly. Fake piles of snow were placed into the corners and Zen went into excruciating detail making sure that every part of the room was ready for christmas.

When it finally came time for christmas day, (Zen was pissy because nobody let him open a single present a day early)hot chocolate was passed around and everybody sat around the christmas tree. A tall white tree flaked with fake snow and with a big lightsaber-star-thing on top. Everybody was confused at how it worked but was told "CHRISTMASMAGICSHUTUP!" and they just lived with it. Plus, it cleared out bugs that had infested the ship as it was a convenient bug-melter.

For space-christmas, everybody received gifts from one another.

Iisska was given a new blaster, another super heavy pistol in fact, from Zen. He had it commissioned a little while back and it was custom made for him. The grip was enlarged to better fit his hand and the leather formed over the handle was formed to perfectly fit his palm. Barrel, receiver, and body were streamlined and almost looked like a completely normal blaster with several etchings and designs of their travels all over it. In truth, it was a custom made DT-57, just for Iisska. Plus, Zen had replaced the focus crystal inside with a rare white one from the Jedi Temple. He didn't explain how he got it, but Iisska didn't mind as it gave the blaster quite a bit more punch but less kick...and it was stylish as void.

From Nyrette, Iisska got a set of wraps for his Lekku that all matched so that when he was in public, he could wear a nice set of dark blue covers that went with his markings to hide the prosthetic.

From Cheshik, whom didn't understand these customs at all, he got a warm, hand crafted red sweater. "I was told that ugly sweater was gift that would be appropriate. I thought sweater was ugly and got for you. I am not fan of color red." Iisska didn't mention the 500 credit price tag on it.

Marquis' present, which Trinity said came from her too, was a heavy pair of boots. "I had noticed that Zen was teaching you martial arts through the force. I thought you might enjoy a pair of boots that influenced and aided that style of fighting." They were well detailed and outright beautiful boots, but what was special was that they had steel lining in the toe and heel. As a bonus, a serrated kris popped out the sole of each boot on command that could even be triggered by Iisska's command of the force.

While each person could have gotten him a present that might have meant nothing to the gray sith master, the group decided to get Zen a single present. They pooled their money to get him a speeder and set of armor that was so badass that, for the first time since knowing him, they saw Zenithar weep real tears of joy.

They had landed on a planet in the middle of it's winter cycle and were happy to watch as Zen immediately took the speeder out for a joy ride. Little did they know that he wouldn't take the armor off except to shower for the next six months.

Nyrette on the other hand was being a butt. She couldn't think of anything she wanted and nobody knew what she really liked, so the crew just grabbed nice things and gave them to her. From Zen, she got a very large bottle of pills. When she asked, he explained that they were pills Jedi masters used to silence their dreams and block outside mental disturbances so that they could get a peaceful sleep. He thought she was going to cry as he described them to her. From Cheshik, again, a sweater but this time it was a dark purple. Ooooh. She knew that Cheshik had no idea was a christmas was and just laughed and put it on. From Marquis and Trinity, going on the trend of "Super beautiful yet stupidly dangerous" clothing, she received a set of fighting gloves that had small ejection ports in the plate of the back of the hands that could eject a deadly neurotoxin. Cheshik started to get afraid of what Marquis was going to get him.

Speaking of Marquis, Cheshik got him...surprise surprise, a green sweater while Nyrette gave him a new pea coat to replace the one he lost during the heist. It was just like his old one, though with extra pockets on the inside. From Zen, however, Marquis received...his cane. Marquis was almost insulted until Zen explained that he got it upgraded to super heavy and had the handle reworked to be able to fire small concussion and stun bolts like a pistol.

As for Trinity, the group divided into twos to get her presents. Cheshik could not figure how how to fit a sweater on the A.I. core so enlisted Nyrette's help to get her a set of programs that would let her change everything about her avatar...and a sweater was one of the defaults as well, so, naturally, Trinity had a sweater now too.

Zen didn't need help and instead got the A.I. core upgraded. Though the programmers tried to wipe the memory to do a clean install of upgraded software, threat of a long, agonizing, death made them take the extra seven hours without pay to upgrade the A.I. core without compromising Trinity herself.

As for Marquis, her lover, He refused to get her some generic trinket or upgrade to the ship that was going to be done regardless of Christmas time or not. He instead took her out into the more posh districts of Coruscant and had a long, beautiful evening with one another before leaving the planet.

Finally, it came to Cheshik and he was feeling down. Everybody received great gifts and he was with his closest friends, but even then he felt alone without his son. In an attempt to make him feel better, Nyrette hugged him and told him that he was with family that cared about him and that his son was thinking of him wherever he went. He seemed to cheer up from her comment and from the presents given to him.

From Zen, Cheshik got something very much unexpected. An exquisitely crafted Zweihander. He had looked at Zen with disbelief that these still existed and Zen said that there were plenty of worlds out there that still created melee weapons like that and that universal elements made them even stronger than they could ever be. It was extremely light, light enough for Cheshik to treat it like it was a simple longsword.

From Nyrette, Cheshik received a book called: Intergalactic basic, it's idioms, it's words, and its' phrases. For dummies.

From Marquis and Trinity, Cheshik was given, strangely, a small music box that didn't explode. When it opened, a picture of the crew was underneath the lid and a tune he didn't quite recognize played. The tune stuck with him though.

To come to a close, Quin was last. From the man that ruined her life, Zen. She received something...unexpected. He handed her a box of chocolates. While not much, it, and the note inside describing his reasons behind such a 'sweet' gift, was his way of apologizing for the past year. Though whether or not she would either skewer him or hug him would be her choice alone.

From Marquis, again surprisingly, a new dress. The dark purple that made up the fashionable dress was almost shimmering in the light as it mingled with the golden colored patterns that were strewn across the dress, somewhat resembling wind. "Nyrette had informed me that you had only a single dress to call your own. I sought to remedy that."

From Trinity, a warm and fuzzy fleece blanket that had a design depicting a moon of unknown origin on it. A beautiful piece that would no doubt keep her warm on cold nights on the ship. A little bit to her embarrassment however...it was twice the width of her bed in the cabin, which naturally meant that Trin was accounting for Nyrette in her gift.

From Cheshik. The best thing ever. ANOTHER SWEATER. BUT THIS TIME PURPLE AND A SIZE TOO BIG. Cheshik was far too happy about giving it to her because of the blanket. "Oh! Now you wear while under warmth of blanket! You shall be like baby in womb of warmth!"

From Nyrette however...she gave nothing. There was no present from her. Least not in front of the others....

Once all gifts had been exchanged and the merriment started to come to a close, the group set up beds in the cafe and slept near each other for the night. The animals had come in to join them and lay with their masters. Nyrette had snuggled close to quin and had taken a couple of those pills Zen gave her. For the first time in half a year, she slept peacefully. Zen snuck out to sleep with his speeder.

Early the following morning however, Nyrette found Quin alone and presented her present in private.

Pulling her into her room, Nyrette held out a small black handle held it in both hands towards Quin. "I apologize for not giving this to you last night. It is a...deep and very personal gift to you." She clicked a button underneath the handle and a metal shard popped out of it and, within a few nano seconds, a highly deadly vibro-knife. She presented it to quin and handed it to her gently. "I've had this knife with me since I joined the Empire. We were taught...that should the empire ever fall, the only thing that we will be able to trust for the rest of our lives will be our knives. It's saved me from...a lot of situations where I should have died. It's something that I've held close my entire life and...well. I have something else to hold close now." She said with a wink.

She took it from her from a moment and showed her a few tricks with it, such as twisting the handle after holding down the button used to sheathe it can break it in half and make it a Balisong knife. She showed her how sharp it was as well, taking the piece of HK armor that was reclaimed on Nal Hutta and treating it like it was paper. When she was done, she handed the knife over to Quin without a moment's hesitation. "Take good care of it." She said and hugged her.

After the morning coffee was passed around, morale was high and everybody was happy with one another for once. Zen walked about the ship with a cup of hot coco in hand just after turning the thermostat down enough so that everybody had to wear their warm clothing, when, in the cockpit, there was a popup!

Quin and Iisska were in the cockpit as they entered the Arkanis sector and a bright blue advert popped up with a video showing some arena on Geonosis.

"Intrepid explorers and brigands!" the hologram screamed as Quin and Iisska covered their ears from the blaring. They scrambled to turn the volume down. "Are you blood thirsty?! Dangerous?! Some kind of crazy force wielder?! COME! To Geonosia! We have taken the most idiotic, cruel, ravenous, and horrible creatures and beings we could find and threw them here in an attempt to entertain the masses with blood!" Finally Iisska found the volume and turned it way down, though it was too late, Zen was at the door watching with a slacked jaw. The video played, showing heaps of monsters and prisoners with weapons ready to be pitted against.

Quin shook her head and said that this was a trap. She looked back to see Zen in his armor. She looked at the video again and mentioned that there was even a timestamp that was twenty years old. She looked back to see Zen strapping weapons on and igniting a lightsaber. She looked at the vid again and sarcastically asked if he was serious. When she looked back Zen had his speeder in the doorway and was laughing. She jumped up and screamed "What the fu-HOW DID THAT GET IN THERE".

Before they could really fight Zen's decision, they were off to Geonosia instead of off to, ya know. Someplace with a beach.

STAR WARS: ANIHILATION {Reboot} {DemonTongue/Vash}

-As narrated by Zen-

On the planet of Nal Hutta, a place with no buttah, our heroes sat in the rain, that which was their bane, after blowing up a factory, like the...dick-tory they were...I give up on the rhymes, stop making me do this Marquis.

The assholes were now in the den in front of a fire. Iisska, Quin, Marquis, Cheshik, Nyrette, Trinity, and the mighty dictopus that is Zen, sharing stories and getting blind stinking drunk. Tarisian black ale is involved. This'll be good.

"I don't... no. The last time I drank this stuff I wound up naked and hanging over a bottomless void upsidedown," Iisska eyed the ale with some trepadation.

"Don't be a wimp." Nyrette said, grabbing a tankard and turned up the nozzle on the glass keg of Tarisian ale. "Zen, where the void do you keep buying this stuff? It's ludicrously expensive."

"Who says I buy it? I'm a man of taste, Nyrette, and my pallate demands that the ale be stolen. That is the best way to enjoy it." He smirked and leaned back on the couch in front of the fire."

"We are rich now with friends here and happy tidings and yet you steal ale still?" Cheshik mused. "Is that not Irony or am I getting irony wrong again?" He said, looking at Quin as Nyrette passed out the tankards to everybody.

Quin shook her head, "No, Cheshik that's not--"

"Isn't irony, like, something that's made of metal? Metaly?" Iisska interrupted her.

"Oh! That must be it, correct?" Cheshik agreed. "I enjoy word, Metaly. It is strong and-"

"NO! It has nothing to do with iron or metal. Cheshik almost had it right the first time," Quin sighed.

Coming by, Nyrette patted Quin and sat next to her, placing both their tankards on the coffee table in front of them and the fire. "Oh, Pik'ire. Be nice to them. It's not their fault that the language that literally everybody in the galaxy knows is beyond them." Nyrette said.

"OH. BURN. Awwwwhohh." Zen yelled.

"Beyond our patience? Yeah. Why the fuck do you people use the same word to mean a million different things?" Iisska snorted, "It's stupid."

"You just used one right there." Nyrette said. "Stupid can me something actually bad or somebody that is mentally handicapped."

"Yeah! See!? You proved me right," he grinned.

"ANYWAY." Cheshik said, dropping the subject as it was going in circles. He looked at Iisska and smirked. "So. When were you going to tell us, Iisska?"

Iisska leaned back and finally gave into taking a sip from the tankard he found himself with... and gave himself a second to think, "Uuuhhhh, tell you what?"

"Come with, you know what I speak of." He said.

"I'm not coming with! What are you talking about!?"

Nyrette looked at him for a moment and then to Quin. "Do you have a small piece of paper?"

Quin raised a brow and shifted uncomfortably though she was smiling. After a few seconds of fishing in her pockets she handed Nyrette a small folded piece of cardstock with some old numbers scrawled on one side.

Procuring a pen, Nyrette took the card and wrote down a letter in large form and handed it to Iisska. There was a large black V on the card. "Here, you dropped this." She said.

Iisska frowned. He looked at the V. He turned it over and looked at the smudged senseless numbers. He flipped it back over again. He glared at Nyrette. He looked at the V again. The confusion rapidly filling the room was palpable. It had a slight hazelnut flavor. "Is this a joke?"

"Think about it for a moment." She said.

"I am thinking about it," he said, "You have some wack sense of humor or something, lady. There's nothing here, it's just some stupid mark on a paper. Is this some human custom that--"

There was a silence that struck the lounge like a train hitting a small adorable animal. Iisska stared straight ahead for a few seconds. Then his hand started shaking and he crunched the piece of paper in his hand.

"Oh... This is... It's a V... It's a... 'V-card,'" he stuttered quietly, "I get it. Hah... because..."

"VIIIIIIIIIRRRRGIIIIIN BLOOOOOOOOD!" Zen screamed at the top of his lungs and the burst out laughing.

Iisska's stripes turned a hillarious shade of neon blue.

"QUIN!" He slammed his hands down on the table.

Quin covered her face and started to try not to giggle, "I'm sorry!"

Cheshik cocked his head as he looked at the card too and had to ask. "This goes over head. What is Virgin?"

"One whom has not had sex, Cheshik." Nyrette chuckled, much to Iisska's dismay.

"Why do you have to say that word like that?" Iisska moaned at her. He had slid off the lounge seat and was slowly curling into a tighter and tighter ball on the floor under the table.

"Don't feel bad Iisska." Nyrette said. "We've all got embarrassing secrets that deserve to be laughed at for five, maybe six, minutes tops." She smiled.

"Like?" Zen said.

"Um...you first." She said, sheepishly.

"I'm pretty sure I fathered a daughter somewhere in the galaxy because I got yelled at for alimony that I refused to pay ten years ago. Your turn." Zen responded.

Quin folded her arms, "Let me guess. You still haven't paid it. Oh, I'm so suprised at you, Zen. Well at least the kid doesn't have to deal with you."

"Well..." Nyrette said. "I have a crush on Quin." She said outright.

Quin choked on her own spit after sucking in a gasp and went into a coughing fit.

The table was bumped from underneath as Iisska lurched back up into his seat, "Come on, I knew that one already."

Quin was able to get her breath back only long enough to scream at him, "YOU WHAT!? YOU KNEW!?"

A fanged and very jagged smile that would make a demon think twice split across Iisskas face, "Vengence."

Marquis, whom has been quiet the entire time with the hologram Trinity next to him finally spoke. "Everybody knew, Pik'ire. Everybody." he chuckled and sipped his hot oil. "As for me, I was a sex bot for two months before I joined the crew."

"You... Really? Everybody? I... Wow. I suppose you could be considered the 'knight in shining armor' type now that I think about it," Quin said, "This is becoming a lot to take in."

"That is what the she said!" Cheshik yelled. "...right?"

Iisska guffawed and giggled, "Right."

"Well. It is the turn of me, correct? Well." He shrugged. "I am into the male gender." he said plainly. "Or...as Iisska once called Zen's methods: "Gay""

"Oh, please. You need to have something more embarassing than that," Quin said, "That hardly qualifies."

"Then Nyrette having smash on you is not qualified either, right?"

"Er... G... No. No that' still counts... Though I guess she shouldn't actually be embarassed... because... you know," Quin was blushing violently.

"Oh I want to do that too." Nyrette winked at Quin and laughed.

Quin swallowed hard, looked away and downed half her tankard in one go. On the other side of the table Iisska's unwavering look of child-like curriosity had transformed into the twisted sneer of someone betrayed in the worst way.

"No," he hissed.

"What?" He questioned Iisska.

"You-- You-- YOU'VE SEEN ME NAKED! I WASN'T EVEN-- HAD I KNOWN-- I don't!! GAH!"

"Oh Iisska. You are not my interest. But you are, as they say, "hung" and you should be proud, but slim the gut a bit. Baby fat is not cute."

"HEY! First off... don't talk about it like that. Second off, why does everybody keep calling me fat?"

"Because virgins are fat." He said.

"I thought we were friends," Iisska grumbled... then looked at the small roll under his shirt.

"Don't get worked up. You aren't fat. You're... Um... You're... Aaaahhhh," Quin waved her hand around and looked for a word, "Husky?"

Feeling bad, Cheshik wrapped an arm around Iisska and pulled him into a hug. "Do not worry, brother. It will go away with time."

Well. Last now was Trinity, whom had happily stayed quiet and watched the chaos unfold. When the group turned to her she looked sheepish as her eyes darted between Zen and Iisska.

"I...uh...well." She froze for a moment before just sighing as Marquis patted her device. "I don't like One Punch Man."

"OH BULLSHIT!" Zen and Iisska stood and yelled. "THAT'S A LIE AND YOU KNOW IT!"

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!" Iisska nearly threw the table over bolting to his feet, "THAT IS FINE ART, MA'AM."

"Um. What is one punch man?" Nyrette said.

"No, don't!" Quin tried to stop her... but it was too late.

Zen and Iisska's neck borderline broke in two as they snapped their heads around and looked at her. "IISSKA. GRAB THE TELEVISION AND I SHALL GRAB THE REMOTE."

Iisska raised one hand and slammed back his entire tankard with the other. Two loud bangs sounded from down the hall before an old, beat up holo-screen was forced through the doors of the lounge and into Iisska's arms.

"Where we're going, we don't need remotes," Iisska growled.

"DON'T QUESTION IT. JUST TURN IT ON."

Iisska slammed that shit down on the bar where everybody was forced to see it and turned to the first episode.